Comments on: Japanese Bishops vs Jury Duty

By: Fr. Dismas, OP

Fr. Dismas, OP — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:52:12 +0000

It seems to me that we are usually dismissed from jury duty in the states, mostly because either side believes that rightly or wrongly (or more accurate for or against them), we would unduly swing our fellow jurors.

I would humbly counsel the Japanese conference of bishops to send all details to the Holy See and ask for clarification.

By: Anthony OPL

Anthony OPL — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 21:34:58 +0000

First of all, I have to ask whether the position of “lay judge” really is the direct equivalent of what we in the Common Law world call “jury duty”. Are there no differences at all in function, or is it purely nominal?

If there are distinctions on function, it is possible that the bishops have seen deeper into the CIC (the commonly-used abbreviation for “Codex Iuris Canonici”) than you or I could. After all, we’re not Japanese.

Secondly, the comment above hit the question square on the head. Any cleric sitting in the jury in a civil court, especially in a country which does not have a Christian majority (let alone a completely pagan heritage) would confuse the role of clerics in the minds of the laity.

Virtually all clerics (especially bishops) are excused from performing jury duty for the same reasons as doctors. Their duties to the people in their care are too important to suffer interruption. The example you have given is clearly a bishop who is willingly undertaking jury duty to make a pastoral point, despite the option to be exempt.

By: a NY Priest

a NY Priest — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:20:02 +0000

There are canonical reasons why priests and religious should not sit on juries, but also pastoral reasons. For example, by sitting on a jury and judging according to the civil law the priest puts himself in an adversarial position to a member of his parish, in re or in spe. While the person may certainly deserve to be condemned according to the law, it is important for spiritual reasons that they regard the clergy as “on their side” and willing to forgive.

Moreover, I believe that before the conversion of the Roman Emperor, clergy were forbidden to take on government roles. Christian laymen who held political office usually became “irregular” and so could not be accepted for holy orders.

By: OneofThem

OneofThem — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 16:33:21 +0000

I don’t think jury duty, even in Japan, can be considered a public office. Perhaps the bishops were looking at a Japanese translation of the CCL—who knows how much or how little the Japanese translation grasps the meaning of the original Latin (the Latin version being the only valid CCL).